


NG+

by whittler_of_words



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Pre-Canon, Recovery, Suicide Attempt, chara lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-10
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-07-10 18:23:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15954947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whittler_of_words/pseuds/whittler_of_words
Summary: A New Game Plus (or New Game+, often abbreviated as NG+) is an unlockable video game mode available in some video games that allows the player to start a new game after they finish it at least once, where certain features in NG+ not normally available in a first playthrough are added.





	NG+

Your secret is: you are terrified.

Pain has never been an enemy or a friend; just something that refuses to go away. It sits on you heavily now, pushing your fingers into the sheets of a bed that you’re beginning to feel like you’re drowning in. It’s starting to get hard to breathe. It’s only been a few days. Or maybe you should say: it’s already been days, and you’re not even that close to dead yet. Part of you wishes this could happen quicker. The other part of you hates yourself for thinking you would ever deserve to get off easy.

Tomorrow, it will start. Tomorrow, it will be too obvious for you to keep the consequences of your plan a secret. Toriel will fret, and insist that you remain in bed. Asgore will make you tea, you hope. Asriel...

You’ve never liked trusting people. To look the other way, and to place your faith in someone who would so easily wield it like yet another hand against you; you’ve fallen before, toppled backwards just short of hands that pulled back so they couldn’t catch you. Been laughed at, too. So...

You’re dying one way or another. Maybe if you trust Asriel, you will just die a little faster.

Closing your eyes, you can see it: your family, happy and free and smiling, wishing on real stars, basking in a sun that isn’t filtered through layers of rock and soil. You imagine you get lucky, able to watch them live the rest of their unburdened lives from somewhere - whether you’ll be looking up or down, you have a few guess at where you’ll be spending eternity. You imagine you won’t. It’s okay though.

No matter what, your plan will work. You’re determined to make it so.

|

\-- + --

|

Your secret is: dying isn’t the most painful part of it all.

It’s seeing their faces. The way the hope leaks out of them, slowly, even if they refuse to give up until the end. They try to heal you, but their attempts pale in comparison to stuffing yourself with more poison than your body knows what to do with. You become too weak to walk. Toriel carries you to the chair next to the fireplace so that you won’t ever be alone; Asgore to the garden; Asriel hardly ever leaves your side to begin with.

The days that lead up to you finally kicking the bucket are humiliating, feverish and bloody, and you treasure every second of it.

You’re alone when it finally happens. At least, you think. Your last memories are barely even there, but they’re of falling asleep, and the next thing you’re aware of is glorious awareness. To breathe through a throat that isn’t raw. To breathe at all.

It’s not clear whether it’s Asriel’s tears or your own that streak down your face. It’s simply enough that this is more than you could have ever imagined; if you do this right, you can get a happy ending, too. Maybe you don’t have to sacrifice yourself for this.

“Asriel,” you say, just to say something. Your own body is on the bed before you. Small, and weak. The voice that comes from your mouth is neither yours nor your brother’s, but it’s not something you pay much attention to. You strip the blankets from the bed and pick up the empty shell there, cradling it in your arms, and you know enough about how both of you work that you can tell the smile on your face is all yours. “Asriel. We’re going to be free.”

+

Your secret is: you’d only ever thought the plan would work because you wouldn’t be around to fuck it up.

If you’d thought about it a little more, you might have realized Asriel could never kill someone the way he was. Not on purpose. But if you died -- well. Death changes a person, doesn’t it? Losing you could make him stronger. You could give him grief to use as the skeleton of what anger he’d need to get the job done.

In truth, you just believed that anything you were a part of was doomed to fail.

The proof that there is no exception to this rule sits firmly on the handles of the shears sticking out of your stomach.

There are tears down your face, again. You know that the smile on your face is not yours because nothing happening with the _stupid_ body is yours right now; you kick and scream and bloody your knuckles against an invisible wall, but no matter how much you fight, no matter how much you plead, Asriel refuses to let you win.

Someone hits you in the back with a baseball bat. It’s wood, you think, because you hear the sound of something splintering, but you’re still in one piece. Even if you can’t react in the way you want, you can still feel how much it hurts.

Asriel does not drop your body, and he flees, but he does not run.

“We can’t,” he says. You can taste his dust in your mouth. Your dust, too, you guess. “I can’t, Chara.”

 _You said you would._ God, you wish you could cry. _You knew what this would mean._

“That’s not the same as understanding!” he says, crying for you anyway. “Chara, I can’t free our people at the price of innocent lives.”

_You think they’re innocent? The people who hurt me? Who just hurt US?_

“Then why should I let us become as bad as they are?”

Because it’s for a better reason than they could ever hope to be a part of, you want to say. Because this matters. Because I love you.

 _I don’t want to die for nothing,_ you say instead.

“You haven’t-- you’re not _dead,_ ” he insists. It’s unfair how relieved he sounds. He stumbles, for a moment, before picking himself back up. It hadn’t taken half as long to get to the village as it’s taking to get back. “You’re still alive. Just, different. And when we get back we- we can explain everything. Mom and Dad will understand.”

You know better than to believe you’ll ever get that chance.

He’s dying. You can tell, because you’ve done it before, and because you know he can’t feel his hands. Asriel coughs up white dust all over your dead body’s sweater. He ignores it.

“You know,” he says, quietly, “this is the first time I’ve seen a human’s body.” And then, even more quietly, “I hope it’s the last.”

You were fine being the one to die. You welcomed the idea of it. Relished it, maybe. It’s the thought of Asriel dying that’s unacceptable -- that makes you burn too hot inside, leaves your fists balling and teeth gritting and the taste of blood in your mouth. It can’t happen. It won’t. You won’t let it.

If Asriel wasn’t so injured, it might’ve been fine. If he’d fought back to show the other humans he wouldn’t tolerate being hurt. If he hurried back to Ebott a little faster, to where Mom or Dad could heal him.

The numbness spreads up his arms, towards his chest, and you know you don’t have that sort of time.

Asriel will not die. You will not die for nothing. He will _not_ die for nothing. You will claw yourself out of your shared chest and carry _him_ home to make him better before he can fall down, you’ll tear the world apart before you’re the reason you let your brother die, you’ll--

You _won’t._ You _won’t._ You _refuse._

|

\-- + --

|

Asriel jolts upright when you gasp, always a light sleeper. He stumbles to your bedside in an instant, and your fingers are twisting into his shirt before he can finish asking what’s wrong. Your hands are yours, and he’s here, and you’re here, and it must have been a dream, you think, or a nightmare. Definitely a nightmare.

(You’d always found it funny how no matter what happens to you in a dream, you can never actually feel the pain. Nevermind that the pain you remember had felt very, very real. Nevermind that the images flashing behind your eyes aren’t even close to dreamlike. Nevermind. Nevermind.)

“Chara?” he asks, frightened now. “Are you okay? Is it- is it happening?!”

You’d laugh at that if you could. You want to tell him you’re fine. You want to tell him that you can’t do this anymore. All that comes out of your throat when you try is a dry sob, sending the taste of blood to your mouth. You’re definitely scaring him. Desperately, he tries to pry your blistered fingers from his pajamas, babbling about how it’s going to be okay, and when he finds he can’t, finally, he shouts, “Mom! Dad!”

The door opens down the hall. You sob again, this time in relief.

Your secret is: you have done this all before.

+

Asgore doesn’t even wait until morning to start. You wake up after an exhausting, tear-filled night to find that he’s already spent hours in the garden, carefully decimating the root systems of every instance of buttercup he could find. He’d told you once, when you’d first asked him about his love for gardening, that since the variety of flora in the Underground was limited, he took joy in finding ways to make each species thrive when he could; even the risk of losing one was something you know caused him distress, since if it died out completely there was no way of ever getting it back unless some seeds happened to find their way down. It’s your fault that he has to do this.

Asriel isn’t in the room when you wake up, and when you make your way out in a daze to find him, Toriel tells you he’s been helping in the garden all morning.

You look at her in a stupor until it all catches up with you and you find you can’t look at her anymore. The world feels out of focus, off kilter in the way it gets sometimes, so you tuck your hands behind your back so that she won’t see how they’re mucked up with sores and remember what you’ve done and get mad at you. You’re still waiting for them to get mad at you.

“Child,” she starts. Her voice stutters. Her knitting stuff is out, spread over her lap and spilling over the little table next to her chair. She picks it up though, clearing a you-sized space in her lap, and says, “Will you sit with me?”

In the back of your mind, you hear Asriel’s voice. _Mom and Dad will understand._ Your breath still rattles a little when you breathe, and your throat still hurts, but you take a deep breath and swallow once and climb into her lap. Her arms settling over you is the safest feeling in the world.

She starts rocking back and forth as she begins to knit again, just slightly, and you do your best to let the movement calm you as you try not to think about the taste of dust in your mouth.

+

Later, Ariel asks: “Are you mad at me?”

The only reason you can’t look at him is because you know he’s looking at you. There’s no way for you to explain to him that you haven’t been able to speak to him not out of anger, but out of guilt. What is there to explain? What could you even say? Maybe your nightmare had been nothing but a product of your fevered, sick body betraying you again by trying its hardest to survive, but it forced you to see an outcome to your plan that you’d refused to even consider. How do you tell Asriel that now that you know what it feels like to die, you’re more scared of it than ever? How do you admit that you’d never even considered the thought of what could really happen to him?

“It’s okay if you are,” hey says. Of course, he has no reason not to misinterpret your silence. “I’m just glad you’re okay. I don’t care if you hate me.” His voice wobbles as he says it, though you don’t doubt that he means it.

“...Idiot.” Your throat is better, but your voice still cracks the word in half. “I don’t hate you.”

“Oh,” he says. “Are... _are_ you okay?”

You don’t know how to answer that question, so you don’t. For a few moments, all you hear is Asriel shuffling on his feet as you stare down at your fingers, until he closes the distance between you and, with a strength you still sometimes forget he has, nudges your chair away from the table enough to clear a space big enough to let him hug you.

“Are _you_ okay?” you mumble into his shoulder. You feel bad that it’s taken you this long to ask.

“Maybe a little better than you,” he admits. And then, “Chara, this entire thing has been a huge mess.”

That gets a snort out of you. He laughs a little in return, and before you know it, you’re both setting each other off in a chain reaction, laughing like you’ve lost your minds in the middle of the living room. It’s probably the trauma of it all, you think.

“I’m sorry,” you tell him when you finally catch your breath. “I love you.”

“Me too,” he says, and you don’t have to ask whether he’s reciprocating your apology or the affection. He’s always been with you from the start.

+

In the chaos of it all, you’d nearly forgotten about the simply wrapped boxes until you stumbled upon them underneath your bed, much in the same way you’d planned for them to be stumbled on after you died.

You don’t open them. Instead you pick them up, and carry them to the throne room.

“Hi Gerson,” you say to the turtle making his way out. To be honest, you’re surprised to see him; he hardly ever goes too far from his shop. “Were you talking to Mom and Dad?”

“Sure was,” he says. “Just finished up, in fact. You’re in luck if you wanna get them to yourself, but-” he leans in a little closer, whispering like it’s a secret, “I heard some of the Temmies are wanting to stop by to talk about scholarship funds, so you might wanna make it quick!”

“Oh. Thanks,” you say, though you can’t help but feel a little irked that you apparently have a time limit. He walks out, leaving you alone, and you waste a few moments gathering your breath as if you could do the same to your thoughts before walking into the room.

You think they feel bad that they can’t take time off from their duties to spend time with you after your plan failed. You don’t mind. If anything, you’d feel worse knowing that they had to neglect the Underground because of your shitty problems. They both look to you from where they’re standing next to one of the windows when you walk in.

“Hi,” you start.

“Hello, my child,” Toriel says. She smiles, turning more fully to face you as you walk up to them both. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” you admit. “Less like I’m, uh, dying.”

“Well, that is always a good thing,” Asgore says, his lack of hesitance making your statement feel less awkward than it definitely was. Probably because having a chronic case of sticking your foot in your mouth is something you two have in common.

“Here. I wanted to give you these,” you say, handing them their respective boxes. They’re not marked, but you don’t even have to look to know which is which.

“Gifts?” Neither of them move to open theirs quite yet, though you can see Asgore testing the weight in his. “What’s the occasion?”

You don’t say anything for a moment. There’s something slightly strained in Toriel’s expression, though you don’t want to consider if maybe she already guessed at what these were originally supposed to be. Still...

“I told Asriel to give these to you after I... after the barrier broke,” you say. You fold your hands behind your back, focusing on the pressure of your fingers around your wrists. “I didn’t want you to forget about me. But I... I still want you to have them.” It’s a very careful effort on your part to not look at their faces. “I don’t know how else to thank you for being so- nice. To me.”

Toriel speaks first. “Oh, Chara...”

“Young one,” Asgore starts, “this gift is something I cannot accept.”

“What?” You look up at him, finally. “Why not?”

“I never loved you because I expected something from you in return,” he says, reaching a hand down to place firmly on your shoulder. “I care for you because it is impossible for me not to. Let alone impossible for me to ever forget you. Having you here with us, happy and healthy, is the best gift I could possibly receive.”

He smiles at you, gently. All you can do is stare in return.

“Your father is right,” Toriel says, drawing your attention to her. “Chara, we love you dearly. Every moment we can spend with you is... _more_ than enough.”

You’re trying desperately not to cry as you take the boxes back. You couldn’t tell anyone else what you’d been expecting from this if you were asked, but this, you think, is something you don’t think you could have imagined. You don’t deserve them. It’s a thought you’ve had countless times since you’ve fallen down, ever since you learned that the truth behind their kindness is that they are truly kind. You still forget.

You’ll think of something else to give them. Something untouched by near tragedy, like the Dad Guy sweater, that you can give them as thanks. Not out of an effort to say goodbye. Just as another way to say I love you. To them, and to Asriel, too.

You’ll think of something. After all, you have all the time in the world.

 

 

 

|

\-- + --

|

**Author's Note:**

> when i first started writing this i intended it to be this whole angsty thing reminiscent of a good heart (which if you've read you'll probably know what i mean, but if you haven't i won't spoil it), but in the end that was too much sadness even for me, so i gave it a hopeful ending instead :')


End file.
